Decorating for the Dinner-Dance

On Saturday morning, the reunion organizers and other volunteers gathered at the Biltmore to decorate River Hall for the dinner-dance that evening.

Participants, contributors, and onlookers:

Juanita Beeke, née Rudon and her husband Trevor; Judith Bodden, née Usher and her husband Willis

Carli Scott and her husband Tom Rindfleisch; Elena van Leer, née Mendoza; Ester Heusner, née Hernández; Ivy Leslie-Blease; Joy Tatum-Haylock and her husband Lou; María Scott, née Villanueva and her husband Alex; Ruby Vásquez

Gustavo Dubois, José Perera, Stanislaus Martínez

Joy was in charge of decorations and chose a black-and-gold color scheme; Judith borrowed chair covers of those colors from her niece, Deserine Kuylen. José designed a banner, had it printed, and embellished it with a golden fringe. When we arrived, the tables were set and the banner was waiting to be hung.

Joy provided balloons and other decorations, designed the floral centerpieces, and brought the flowers. Judith brought most of the vases. When the expected attendance—and number of tables—grew, Joy enlisted Ivy to bring additional vases.

Ruby and Elena provided a frame and props for a photo-booth.

Ruby and Ester arranged to have specially decorated cookies made in Orange Walk and flown in the day before via Tropic Air; Ruby bagged the individual cookies the night before.

Shortly after everyone arrived, the room was a flurry of activities. One production-line worked on the center pieces: fetching water and filling vases; securely seating a pineapple top in the mouth of each vase; cutting ginger shoots, each with a flower and a few leaves; wedging a ginger shoot and a stake topped with the number 50 into each pineapple top; putting the vases on the table. When it was clear we had a surplus of flowers, one or two more were added to each vase along with a long decorative spiral.

Another production-line worked on the balloons: inflating them, adding a ribbon to each one, tying each ribbon to a potted plant or other anchor point.

The remaining ginger and bird-of-paradise flowers were arranged into large vases and placed around the hall and on the table outside the entrance.

Workers from the hotel arrived with ladder and the necessary tools to hang the banner for us.

Various decorations were sprinkled on the tables and hung from the light fixtures.

In the meantime, Juanita and Trevor prepared packages of souvenirs to be given out at the dinner dance: for classmembers, a booklet of photos and brief biographies, a cookbook, and a commemorative dinner napkin; for guests, a cookbook.

The decorators left for a late lunch and rest before the evening’s festivities, hot and tired but satisfield that the room looked ready for the party.

Just before the dinner-dance, Ester layed out name tags on the table outside the hall and Ruby put a few cookies on each table. Now only one ingredient was missing—members of the Class of 1969!